THE NON DECISION

I actually listened to the President's Afghanistan Troop Build up speech at West Point (Dec 1, 2009). I heard what I expected to hear.

We are going to send 30,000 more troops into harms way while promising to retrieve them quickly, after we have successfully completed the mission in a guaranteed 1 1/2 years. I suspect that the real number of combat forces will be around 9000 since, it requires at least 2 soldiers in a support function to field one combat soldier. But wait, there will be an immediate, sorta, deployment of 9000 by next summer which says there will be only about 3000 real combat troops in the country extra by the end of 2010. This, practically speaking, is not the equivalent of an effective surge; it is a token deployment and essentially a waste of manpower and money.

The next thing to consider is that these "surge" troops are going to be deployed into areas with no reasonable means of support; no worthy roads, trains, airstrips, and no apparent ability to get support from our sea based forces. So, how are these folks going to be protected? Even the firebases that were planted in remote areas of Vietnam were provided with some backup via helicopter support gunships, troop carriers, evacuation ships, and air patrols from the sea based carriers.

Finally, with all the information that has been provided by the President's speech, the comments by officials who have been briefed, and by our news media, one of the best methods of attack by a military force has been seriously compromised; the tactic know as secrecy and surprise. Remember how effective the first and second Iraq war initial combat operations were? Both operations were successful because the US plans were not previously transmitted to our adversaries. And, our troop deployment and military locations were not previously advertised. Gee, maybe we should try that idea in this situation.

One last item this time; I found it difficult to determine who our enemies are, I do not think that the President made it very clear who we were supposed to be fighting. One other thing missing in his speech was any hint as trying to involve the US population through emphasizing any emotional need to defeat the enemy. Wait, I still do not know who the enemy is or what the definition of victory in this war happens to be.